India reported Sunday that its coronavirus cases have topped 3 million, after leading the world in newly confirmed cases over a seven-day period through Saturday.
In a sign the pace of the virus's spread is quickening in the world's second-most populous country, it took India just 16 days to add another million cases after reaching the 2 million mark from 1 million in 21 days.
India crossed the 3 million threshold on Sunday after logging 69,239 new cases over a 24-hour period. Fatalities reached 56,706, up 912 from the previous day.
With 3,044,940 total cases, India is only surpassed by the United States and Brazil, which have reported over 5.5 million cases and 3.5 million cases, respectively, according to the World Health Organization. India has the world's fourth-highest fatalities, after the United States, Brazil and Mexico.
The South Asian country, home to a population of over 1.3 billion, exceeded 2 million virus cases on Aug. 7.
More than half of the total confirmed cases are concentrated in four regions: the western state of Maharashtra, the southern state of Tamil Nadu and two other states in the south.
After a huge spike in new cases sparked concern about a lack of hospital beds, new daily cases in India's capital region have eased to a level that sometimes sees fewer than 1,000 new infections.
The Indian government imposed a nationwide lockdown from late March to the end of May. It has been easing the measure in stages since June.
